Due to a few industry hiccups, Lil Mama isn’t the girl anyone would expect to play late legend Left-Eye in the upcoming TLC biopic.
But according to the former “Lipgloss” rapper, she auditioned just like anyone else and they loved her, and in our eyes, that means this girl’s got to be super talented… regardless of her previous mistakes.
Lil Mama recently sat down with The Hollie Wood & Friends Show on Blog Talk Radio to dish the deets on the audition process, her new reality show Hip-Hop Sisters, and not surprisingly, she also mentioned Nicki Minaj.
Lil Mama feels Nicki needs to do more to put other women on and bridge the gap between female rap artists.
Check out a couple of interview highlights below:
On how the Left-Eye role came about:
I definitely had to audition, I heard about it through my uncle when I came back home to NY. He asked if I was going to audition. When he was saying TLC, I’m thinking the channel TLC, ‘like what are you talking about.’
I got in touch with [MC] Lyte but she didn’t really know who was doing it, so she called some people, they called some other people and long story short, my boy Claude Brooks, he hooked me up with casting and then they gave me the run around. I had like three or four auditions but just trying to get into the first one was like trying to get into Madison Square Garden while Jay-Z is performing.
Once I got through the first audition, I could tell they loved me because they called me back to every audition afterwards, which were about three auditions. I just stayed humble; I went through the ropes, read my script. It was one day I read three pages and then the day before they would send me ten more pages then 13 pages and I just had to be ready. I think the key to it all was just being ready. They wanted to know could she be ready. ‘If we are off set and I give her three pages and then I say 13 pages, will she be able to pull it off ?,’ and I was able to pull it off and I was very honored to get that part.
On what she thinks about today’s female rappers:
We need to understand that we all have different stories. One of the things that makes me most happy about music is that I can look at a picture and see Da Brat, Missy, Lil Kim, Left Eye and I know Aaliyah is a singer but to see them all in one photo together hugging and laughing and really having genuine love for each other. I want to feel that with my hip hop sisters. I feel like we shouldn’t bash each other on records and get in-person and talk about how there is no more room for another female MC, it’s only me and F you. Even with the dudes they will battle and let you know, ‘you are not nicer than me’ but at the end of the day we should be able to get together and enjoy each other.
On Nicki Minaj:
It’s a lot of underground women who are trying to break through, but on a mainstream level the only person that I really hear on radio is Nicki Minaj. A lot of times I hear her say, “I do this for women” and “I’m doing this for all of us” while she’s accepting a BET Award, but other than that I don’t see her putting any other women on. I don’t see her on tracks with other women that are current. I don’t see her embracing any other women. I feel like its time for female MC’s to really start sticking together and start putting out some music.
We’re glad that Lil’ Mama is back on the rise and able to do what she loves to do again. Hopefully, this all pans out the right way and Nicki doesn’t come for her…
SOURCE: NecoleBitchie || Photo Credit: GETTY
